When you’re investing time, money and effort into improving user experiences, you want to be able to measure the return on your investment. That’s not easy.
This is a question user-centred designers debate constantly, as we often need to demonstrate the value of our work in concrete terms.
From an outside perspective, design can feel as if it’s made up of abstract concepts such as user experience, emotional engagement, and aesthetic appeal.
As designers, we understand why those are central to the success of a product or service.
We also understand how important it is to communicate the importance of design thinking as a contributor to business success, and economic growth.
It’s in this context that tools for measuring the impact of design work can come in handy – even if boiling human experience down to a numerical score can feel uncomfortable for empathic, creative types.
But, really, it’s about empathising in a different way.
Because those numerical scores can provide designers with the language to connect with colleagues and stakeholders in delivery and management. They remove barriers and build bridges, enabling meaningful collaboration.
When I talk about numerical scores, by the way, I’m thinking of things like:
They’re all ways of making the intangible tangible.
Let’s explore that idea more with a real world example.
Caregiving has long been a cornerstone of human societies but in today’s growth-driven economy, it is often overlooked and undervalued.
That’s despite serving as the often unacknowledged backbone of many essential services, from healthcare to education to family support.
While the pursuit of economic growth has fostered innovation and raised standards of living, it has also sidelined activities like this that cannot be easily quantified in monetary terms.
Care work, particularly when performed within families, is often seen as a private responsibility rather than a public good. This perception diminishes its visibility and importance.
According to the International Labour Organisation, women perform more than three-quarters of unpaid care work globally, contributing economic value that goes unrecognised in traditional metrics.
Even in professional settings, caregiving roles are undervalued and undercompensated.
Nurses, childcare providers, eldercare workers, and social workers face long hours, emotional labour, and challenging conditions without commensurate pay or recognition.
For example, during the pandemic, healthcare workers were rightly hailed as heroes. Yet, many were also left to grapple with burnout, inadequate resources, and low wages.
The disconnect between public praise and systemic neglect underscores the persistent undervaluation of caregiving as a profession.
Caregiving defies measurement metrics because its value is inherently relational and qualitative, even though the act of caring produces widely acknowledged long-term benefits.
These outcomes, such as emotional wellbeing, social cohesion, and individual development, do not fit neatly into spreadsheets or economic forecasts.
As a result, caregiving is often dismissed as ‘soft work’, despite its critical role in sustaining human capital and societal well-being.
While I’m acutely aware that the design industry cannot compare itself to the difficulties faced by people in caregiving roles, there are parallels to be drawn.
They’re both fields where emotional, psychological, or subjective experiences play a significant role.
So, developing effective ways to assess intangible qualities becomes crucial.
To measure such intangibles, qualitative metrics like emotional wellbeing assessments, empathy ratings, and feedback loops through service user narratives can provide something for us to observe and track.
Design metrics have evolved to include more than just usability or functionality.
Designers now frequently look to tools like sentiment analysis to gauge how well a design resonates with users, both emotionally and culturally.
These evolving metrics allow us to better understand the full impact of design work, leading to more human centred and effective solutions in the long-term.